Thursday, February 24, 2005

A New Hope, thanks to the US

If you haven't read it yet, look at David Ignatius' report/column from Lebanon regarding the Lebanese intifada rising up against Syrian occupation and the conversion of Druse Muslim leader Walid Jumblatt. Jumblatt was an accomodationist -- sort of a Lebanese Marshal Petain -- until he saw the Iraqis voting less than a month ago:

It's strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq[.] I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, 8 million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world . . . The Syrian people, the Egyptian people, all say that something is changing. The Berlin Wall has fallen. We can see it.

Hopefully the Europeans (French, Germans, Belgians, Spaniards) will start to understand, freedom is universally desired when the concept is tangible.

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